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Five days. Eight Days.
The protests in Wisconsin have entered their fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth day. Teachers in Madison have again organized a sick-out and will be at the Capitol on Friday and Saturday (as of Tuesday, teachers are teaching again). Democratic Senators left the state yesterday to ensure that there would be no quorum in the Senate. Governor Walker, who threatened to call the National Guard on striking public employees, had the gall to use those same public workers in an attempt to shame the Democrats.
Their actions by leaving the state and hiding from voting are disrespectful to the hundreds of thousands of public employees who showed up to work today"
High School students are walking out of class and 25,000 people demonstrated at the Capitol yesterday. The Tea Party is planning a counter-rally tomorrow. This is democracy! Governor Walker's union busting bill and the public's reaction is important. It shows where the Tea Party wants to takes us and where the public is ready to go.
This bill is not about austerity. If Governor Walker had simply wanted public employees to pay more of their health care and contribute a larger portion to their pension, he could have introduced that bill. Instead he proposed a bill that will strip the unions of their collective bargaining rights. Collective bargaining is the entire point of unions. It's how the 40-hour work week was created and it's what helped the middle class in the U.S. to rapidly expand in the mid-twentieth century. Collective bargaining is just about unions and their members, it's about all of us.
The unions still would have screamed and fought if the proposal was only about benefits, because that's their job They most likely would have agreed to changes. That's how it went down in King County, Washington. The County Executive worked with the unions, making his case that the health of the County relied on concessions from the unions in the negotiations. The Unions agreed to forgo COLAs for the year. The one union that refused, the Sheriff's Union, faces cuts. Executive Constantine hasn't stopped talking to the Sheriff's Union, as Governor Walker has done, and even proposed a .1% tax increase to stop the cuts at the Sheriff's Department. The public voted on the increase in November. The Tea Party was supposed to return government to the people, but Governor Walker decided to rule by fiat and rush his bill through the Legislature.
What happens in Wisconsin is vital to the rest of the country. There are proposals across the country that are fraternal twins to Governor Walker's bill. Everyone has their eyes on Wisconsin. The President made comments, as did Speaker Boehner. Even Senator Orrin Hatch, who is apparently not conservative enough for Utah and has the shore up his credentials, had this to say:
"The only assault is from a bunch of self-interested government union employees who are putting their interests ahead of the interests of the Wisconsin taxpayers who have been funding their runaway spending."
These self-interested government union employees are teachers, DOT workers, prison guards. They are the people who make our states and our country go, educate the next generation, and keep us safe. Governor Walker cynically did not include police and firefighter unions in his bill hoping to keep them out of the protests. It didn't work. Republicans say the word unions with a sneer and want the public to think Tammany Hall, the corrupt dock workers from The Wire, and monocled fat cats counting their ill-gotten public money. Unions go overboard at times and fight battles that were lost a long time ago. They also need to be more open to change, especially teachers unions, but they are important. Unions fought for, and won, the labor conditions that we all enjoy now. They continue to fight for our rights today.
Though we are only two months into the next four years of Tea Party governors and the next two years of Tea Party Members of Congress, this week has been instructive. Rick Scott turned down job-creating High Speed Rail money and Wisconsin exploded. The protests for the last three days are a sign of things to come. We are waking up to what Republicans and the Tea Party mean for our future and it's not good. These demonstrations, those in Ohio and Tennessee and the organizing in Florida are bookends to the healthcare protests that ostensibly propelled the Tea Party into prominence and power. For liberals, Wisconsin shows us that meaningful demonstration hasn't been bred out of us. It shows us that we can organize quickly and keep the focus where it needs to be.
There's also this. The Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature are seeking to disenfranchise student voters. They are proposing a voter ID that will effectively keep students out of the voting booth. Apparently students need even more barriers to civic engagement. Though no one can ever really make the case the voter fraud is ruining elections, that the reason being cited. It has absolutely nothing to with students tending to vote Democratic say the Republicans. This is one effort out of many across the country. Wisconsin matters.Wisconsin means that 2012 might be more important than 2008.
Update:
Protesters are still in the State Capitol on Tuesday, February 22nd. The 14 State Senators are still MIA across the border in Illinois and State Senate Republicans are threatening to take up other matters. Teachers appear to be back in the classroom, heeding a call from the head of their union.
Governor Walker is threatening layoffs, as early as next week, if the State Senators do not return to allow his Union Busting bill to pass.
A pro-union/demonstration website was apparently not accessible from the State House Monday and today. Protesters are blaming Gov. Walker and the Republicans, but the State's DOA spokesperson claimed that the security software blocked the website, "as it does all new websites". Whatever the reason, it couldn't look worse.
The Tea Party showed up, in large number over the weekend. Despite appearances by rightwing luminaries like Andrew Brietbart, opponents of the bill vastly outnumbered counter-protesters.
The protests and similar bills are spreading. Activists are packing the State House in Ohio to oppose similar measures by Governor Kasich and Indiana Democrats are leaving the state to avoid a losing vote on an anti-union bill.
Read more at wearenow.org
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Question: where was everybody when this walker guy got elected.
I'm in Florida and we're trying to recall the governor Scott- who was indicted for medicare fraud. 2010 was a bust. Now we have to make up for it.
http://open.salon.com/blog/chicago_guy/2011/02/17/killing_the_wisconsin_idea
There is also no evidence that busting the union will help balance the budget.
Last month the state gave away 117 million in tax breaks. Had that not happened, there would have been a surplus. The source of this the state's fiscal bureau. So the answer to your question is simple---don't take from the poor to give to the rich.
But that's not even the reason why all this is so important.
One of the guiding principles of Wisconsin is called "The Wisconsin Idea." The "idea" states that no legislation shall be enacted that does not benefit the greatest number of people. So the reason that this fight is so important really had nothing to do with balancing a budget. Wisconsin's budget is no where near as bad off as many other states. The fight is about the very radical idea of the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Turns out that no one. NO ONE believes that trickle down stuff really works.
And union busting doesn't solve a budget problem
It also could be a misstep for the Reactionary Right. They might best have left well enough alone there. Students are notoriously fitful voters. But you cannot risk putting them in the streets. The streets are where the students are most effective. And particularly in the context of the Marxist's dream, so difficult to bring about in reality--students and workers in concert.
The $3.6 billion hole is not about public sector benefits - half it it is Medicaid. I believe that the Unions and their employees should be willing to pay more. I think that they would if this wasn't such gigantic gambit to end the Unions. If this is just about the deficit there is no reason to proscribe collective bargaining or the ability of the Unions to use dues for political purposes. Most states require a balanced budget and are dealing with the issue - by negotiating. Here, in Washington, unions have made concessions. Unions see the same reality that we all do. They may fight, it's what they do, but they would make concessions.
This bill is politics. It's all about union busting and weakening a donor to you opponents.
Chicago Guy, How does $117 million in tax cuts turn into over 3 billion dollars? "Had that not happened, there would have been a surplus." Really, where did the other money go?
Michael, So you are upset that the unions will lose dues that they use to buy influence with politicians. How about if the unions used that money to do something productive for their members like fund their retirement or healthcare. Why give it to the fat cat K Street Lobby firm?
Also, how does an ID card keep students from voting? They walk in and give them their school ID, drivers licenses, state ID card etc and vote. How does this "disenfranchise" anyone other than the person claiming to be a dead person so they can vote twice?
Maybe he is ALWAYS right.
Maybe he is the Messiah.
and what's with these fucking annoying audio-on ads all of a sudden? wtf? they got rid of these on yahoo and aol and youtube some time ago due to a little uprising of users...why should open salon have to put up with this shit?
yeah.
Walker is a tool. And like you said on another post, what's with his slicked-back haircut? It's a sleazy pro-business 80's thing, I think. It reminds me of the Sheen character in the first "Wall Street," only without the ethics.
And you know, Activia has been linked to serious liver damage. I swear. You should do a post.
lokaler
Fine then. Let's tax corporations instead. Let's nail shut every loophole that enables them to pay far less in taxes than they ought to be. "But it will lose American jobs!" I hear the right cry. Look around you; we pamper the wealthy we pamper corporations, and they ship our jobs overseas ANYWAY. Then they laugh in our faces.
The wealthy are pretty good at looking after themselves--that's how they got to BE rich. And they've got an awful lot of right wing legislators in their corner. Over the last 30 years, more and more American wealth has been concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. The gap between people like us and the Koch Brothers is truly a gulf of obscene proportions. You keep that trend up long enough, and it will eventually lead to public unrest, at very least. I believe we're watching that anger beginning to manifest in Wisconsin right now. If you don't believe me, ask the Romanovs. Or maybe King Louis Capet XVI of France. Except it's a little late in both cases.
Sorry, the Wealthy can't have me in their corner, too. I don't seek to punish wealthy people out of spite, but I see absolutely no reason to continue to pamper them at the expense of everything and everyone else, either. Yesterday, the Teaparty Congress showed it's utter contempt for a little over half the population of the US--women--when they withdrew all funding for Title X defunding Planned Parenthood. Which would made not only abortions but protective cancer screening, STD care, and contraception harder to get especially for low income women. Theydon't care if you've voted Republican for years--if you're a woman, they still kicked you in the face and without a qualm.
Go ahead and keep turnning down their Dux beds and fluffing their swans' down pillows if you want. But excuse me if I beg off of both details. I'm not going to kiss their feet when I want to piss on their shoes.
my husband worked for ibm for 25 years. i am not eligible for medicare yet. we've been married for 27 yrs. ibm has this year raised what we pay for my health coverage from $250 to $800...that's within a couple hundred dollars of his complete pension. we cannot do it. so now i have to apply for medicaid...i am sickened at the thought. we do not receive food stamps; we get no help with rent; we do get HEAP. the only thing we ever received was cait got SSI and medicaid because all children with life-threatening diseases do, no matter what the household income.
hence my withdrawal from effexor's generic this past week; even the generic is over $200/mo for my dosage. so this bi-polar, ptsd'd woman is looking to go on the dole and it's as if the last vestige of my self-esteem has been stripped from me, the last bit of facade that i was of the so-called middle class. and there ain't a damn thing i can do about it.
I'm so sick of politicians telling the middle class that THEY have to make sacrifices while they keep giving tax breaks and sweetheart deals to corporations and the wealthy. The people are right to protest this state of affairs. They should have been protesting YEARS ago. Maybe Egypt reminded us all that demonstrations actually CAN work if you're serious about them.
I sincerely hope this is the beginning of a new era where the people finally start to rise up and demand that their government represent THEM for a change. They won't have the benefit of wealthy donors like the Tea Party has, but they'll have the strength of numbers. They just need to find a way to get through to the low-information citizens who accept whatever explanation for the poor economy that the corporate media feeds them.
In Wisconsin the people are being asked not just to give in the name of balancing a budget they are being told that they will have to bow before the powerful to keep their livelihoods. There is absolutely no need to take away collective bargaining rights in order to balance the budget there. The people who say it is a power grab are absolutely correct. I watched the auto industry and the UAW go back and forth for years, with the unions bowing to nearly every demand made in the name of "saving jobs" yet at every turn the industry sought ways to avoid any union at all by shipping those jobs that others sacrificed pay and benefits to keep were shipped to the third world and while getting tax breaks to boot. The auto industries still went broke since they spent all of their efforts to make investments pay off better and not worry about keeping their U.S. factories up to date or efficient. They sacrificed a good product in the name of profits. They were given welfare to keep the few jobs they had left here and for the most part they were either busily handing out bonuses to overpaid idiots who put them in the hole in the first place. Where did that money come from? Was it all taken from wealthy people? The people most likely to have investments in that industry? The people who had taken their money and ran? No, it came from every one who paid a dime in income taxes and don't lay that crap about poor people not paying taxes out either. Everybody who works pays taxes, everyone. Many may be just giving the government an interest free loan until those taxes are refunded but when was the last time a bank loaned you any money without charging you for it?
Wisconsin is just one more place where the wealthy and the powerful show their true nature. Just like Reagan and PATCO it has little to do with the money and all to do with the power to punish and force and mistreat employees by forcing them to absorb costs that the investors and owners do not want to give up from their profits.
Sing the party line all you want to fascists. There is little you can do to change my mind in light of the evidence. We the people will continue to fight the power. We will not be stripped of our rights as workers and citizens in the name of the profit margin.
I understand the government bureaucrats union wages are significantly higher the comparable private sector wages and benefits. The reason certain people are so anti union is the insistence that we maintain unsustainable benefit packages.
They are running our economy into the ground. The CEOs that are getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars a year are even worse, but that doesn't make what the unions are doing right.
Yes, Unions made the middle-class, and we would all be better-off unionized. But, you cannot have open borders and unions; they are a contradiction until the whole working world is organized.
Meanwhile, those who are displaced from jobs or fearful about their jobs are terrified when you ask them, not for charity, but to uphold a life they cannot afford.
The real issue is union busting. Plain and simple. That's what this is about.
I heard a discussion on a conservative radio talk show tonight in which a caller was saying that the shortfall in Wisconsin is about 8 billion, and that the cuts proposed by Walker's bill will only account for about half a billion -- 1/2 billion -- still leaving about 7.5 billion to contend with.
This is a ruse to further disadvantage average citizens, nothing more. This is the typical societal approach of conservatives.
the GOP blindly demonizes huge swaths of the population without any concept of who they are demonizing or why.
(The why especially....)
Unions have already been so maligned in this country, it's unbelievable. My father and brother, both union members, claim to hate unions and they vote for the Republican party.
They've been unionized their entire adult working lives. They don't know what the life of a non-unionized worker would be.
Stripping away collective bargaining rights violates a bigger principle of freedom than most people can imagine.
rate
(Next time you post use your real name you gutless coward.)
CLICK ON WALKER HERE